Posted on 04/21/2006 2:53:18 PM PDT by solosmoke
We’ve had George since he was 10 weeks old,” Mr Baxter said. “They were just playing 15 feet away from us and we heard George growl and Samuel just started screaming and it was the most hideous scream you have ever heard.
It looked like his whole eye had opened up. We rushed him to hospital but because he had just had dinner, he had to wait until 11pm to have surgery. “That was the hardest thing, trying to hold him while he’s screaming in pain and there’s blood everywhere ... it was a nightmare.”
The toddler needed 50 stitches to his face to repair lacerations above and below his left eye as well as punctures and grazes to his cheeks.
The family returned home from hospital yesterday to a backyard without George, who has been put down.
“We had to put him down because we would never have looked at him the same way,” he said. “We would have panicked, wondering if it was going to happen again.”
Labradors are family pets,” he said. “They use them as seeing-eye dogs, you just don’t expect them to turn on a child, especially one he has such a bond with. Next time I’m getting him a fish,” he joked. “Later on we will get another dog, once the boys have grown up a bit.
Samuel’s still got two cats but he’ll miss George. I don’t believe it’s the breed, it’s just the individual dog.”
(Excerpt) Read more at sunshinecoastdaily.com.au ...
What an a**. Guess he'll have to put down Samuel when he decides to hit his little sister in a couple years.
Are you kidding....? the dog ripped the kids face apart and you expect them to keep it? I'd a put the damn thing down with my bare hands if it had been my kid.
Your post is interesting. I agree with you that children should never be left alone with large dogs. Most news stories like this have very little detail because there isn't much to go by. No one may ever know what triggers some dogs to attack, but I would wager that no matter what the breed, there is always a good reason to the dog. Not that it's acceptable, but they don't just snap. None of them. Something happened and the dog took it as a threat, or he was "correcting" the child as if it were a pup. That's just my opinion, of course.
I've had dogs do the nip thing... 50 stiches is no warning nip.
I agree but sometimes the parents don't teach their children not to be cruel to animals.
Today, at the animal rescue I work for, we took in a 12 year-old deaf German Shepherd. The woman who gave her up had the dog since she was a puppy but said that her five year-old son would constantly jump on the dog and pull her tail and even though the dog didn't hurt her son she was afraid the dog would attack him eventually. The woman was a moron and I asked her why she doesn't teach her son not to do that and she just looked at me and said her son wouldn't listen to her. She was a clueless idiot. She shouldn't have the dog let alone children. The dog is in a foster home where she will live out her life because a dog that age will never get adopted out. This is how the dog would have ended up if the shelter hadn't called us and asked us to take the dog.
In Hope, An Animal Shelter Story WARNING: LINK CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT
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